{"id":537,"date":"2025-09-18T18:34:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T18:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/?page_id=537"},"modified":"2025-11-10T16:42:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:42:23","slug":"milkowska-shibata","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/home\/archive\/column-1\/milkowska-shibata\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It Stays in the Family,&#8221; Milkowska-Shibata"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Access this comic <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1_LoIrSzcI88HUE2Z34-jAWNYwTsOyqYh\/view?usp=sharing\">as a PDF<\/a> or read below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Comic Takeaways<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Through their unique positionality, medical interpreters can challenge conventional communication and power dynamics between members of the healthcare team and patients with limited language proficiency.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The pragmatic and ethical dimensions of medical interpreters\u2019 \u201ctranslation moments\u201d (Gonzales &amp; Bloom-Pojar, 2018) can be complicated by their layered and multiple relationships to other<br>stakeholders.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professional standards of practice ensure that medical interpreters adhere to the meaning and context of the information being conveyed. This comic demonstrates the risks of compromising such standards by showing how, for example, interpreting for family members can alter the meaning and flow of communication.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Comics can provide healthcare practitioners a useful means of identifying and preparing for communication- and relationship-based ethico-professional challenges, also offering rhetoricians of health and medicine an alternative discourse for understanding the rhetorical dimensions of such challenges.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Artist Statement<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>The comic was created to raise awareness of the work of medical interpreters and the challenges they face in their daily interactions with patients and healthcare providers. It depicts a specific dilemma concerning the importance of impartiality that may arise during medical interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Medical interpreters must disclose conflicts of interest and withdraw, if necessary, such as when interpreting for relatives and acquaintances, because not doing so jeopardizes values such as accuracy, confidentiality, and role boundaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comic highlights the role of medical interpreters as communication mediators and encourages discussion about how taking on this role may affect the intended meaning of the exchanged message. Describing a real-world experience of a practitioner, the comic provides material for further analysis for scholars engaged in research within the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) who study power relationships in healthcare settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comic was inspired, in part, by \u201cA Dialogue with Medical Interpreters About Rhetoric, Culture, and Language,\u201d co-authored by Laura Gonzales and Rachel Bloom-Pojar (2018). Similarly, it touches on multilingual discourse in RHM scholarship and practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The visual style of the comic was influenced by MariNaomi\u2019s memoir, <em>Turning Japanese<\/em>. Clean and simple black and white illustrations were employed to keep readers\u2019 attention on the meaning of the story being told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is my hope that \u201cIt Stays in the Family\u201d is the first in a series of comics aimed at bringing the work of medical interpreters to a wider audience, through presentations at the Graphic Medicine Conference and my website of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.majamilkowska-shibata.com\">www.majamilkowska-shibata.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comic was created digitally in Procreate to ensure high resolution drawings. Prior to drawing, a script outlining the panels and accompanying text was developed, following the approach described in Meredith Li-Vollmer\u2019s <em>Graphic Public Health<\/em> (2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>References<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gonzales, Laura, &amp; Bloom-Pojar, Rachel. (2018). A dialogue with medical interpreters about rhetoric, culture, and language. <em>Rhetoric of Health &amp; Medicine, 1<\/em>(1-2), 193-212.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Li-Vollmer, Meredith. (2022). <em>Graphic public health: A comics anthology and road map<\/em>. Penn State University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MariNaomi. (2016). <em>Turning Japanese: A graphic memoir<\/em> (illustrated edition). 2dcloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Click on an image below to open a larger version.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"726\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata-726x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Twelve-panel comic. Panel one: Maja answers a phone call from her cousin, Monika, regarding a medical emergency. Panel two: Maja asks with a worried expression on her face and holding a phone to her ear, \u201cWhat happened?\u201d Panel three: Monika\u2019s face in the foreground, with the Polish and the British flags in the background. Panel four: Maja\u2019s face in the foreground, with the Polish and the American flags in the background. Panel five: Maja, with a determined look on her face and a phone to her ear, offers interpretation assistance. Panel six: Text message exchange between Monika and Maja, captured on a phone screen. Panel seven: A snapshot of the code of ethics for medical interpreters. Panel eight: Text on a black background. Panel nine: Maja turned away from the reader, sits at the desk with her phone on it, lost in thought. Panel ten: A phone in speaker mode during a medical conversation. Panel eleven: Maja's silhouette split in half. Panel twelve: A path with a beginning and an end point.\" class=\"wp-image-560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata-726x1024.jpg 726w, https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata-213x300.jpg 213w, https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata-768x1084.jpg 768w, https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata-1088x1536.jpg 1088w, https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/files\/2025\/09\/Milkowska-Shibata.jpg 1451w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 726px) 100vw, 726px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Author Bio<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Maja Milkowska-Shibata (she\/her) is a visual storyteller, independent researcher, and medical interpreter based in Naperville, IL, USA. Her comics have been featured in <em>Sequential Artists Workshop Anthologies <\/em>(2023, 2024), <em>Intima<\/em> (2024), and <em>Tendon<\/em> (2025). She is currently developing a long-form graphic memoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">To Cite<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Milkowska-Shibata, Maja. (2023). It stays in the family [comic and artist statement]. <em>Rhetoric of Health &amp; Medicine, 6<\/em>(4), <a href=\"http:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/home\/archive\/column-1\/milkowska-shibata\/\">http:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/home\/archive\/column-1\/milkowska-shibata\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Access this comic as a PDF or read below. Comic Takeaways Artist Statement The comic was created to raise awareness of the work of medical interpreters and the challenges they face in their daily interactions with patients and healthcare providers. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/home\/archive\/column-1\/milkowska-shibata\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":597,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-537","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/537\/revisions\/616"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/graphicRHM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}